STATUS OF BOOKSTORES

Mr. BENJAMIN. The GPO, through the Superintendent of Documents, operates 26 bookstores. Describe the purpose and operation of each, along with their locations. Please provide a specific breakdown as to the cost of operating each and the revenues generated by each.

[The information follows:]

The purpose of the bookstore program is to make it possible for the broadest segment of U.S. citizens to have direct access to U.S. Government publications. It also enables the general public to have direct contact with employees of GPO who can tell them what documents are available, quote prices, and guide their purchasing of U.S. Government publications from GPO.

Bookstores are located in 19 major cities outside the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, often at the request of congressional delegations. Each store has a staff of three or more employees trained in the use of our reference files and other information guides to U.S. Government documents. The attached Statement of Expenses and Revenues provides the location of each store and its revenues and expenses.

CONSIGNED AGENTS

Mr. BENJAMIN. The GPO has agreements with 118 consigned agents in other government agencies. Describe the nature of the agreements here and their purpose. Is the current system the most desirable? Explain.

[The information follows:]

The Consigned Sales Agent Program is part of the self-sustaining GPO General Sales Program. The agreements specify that the sponsoring agency provide space and manpower to sell, and that the Agents deposit the proceeds from sales in the U.S. Treasury to the credit of our General Sales program. GPO performs the inventory management function and pays for printing, postage, and mailing supplies. Participating agencies sell only their own publications and generally only the most popular ones.

The purpose of the program is to make it more convenient for the general public to purchase Government documents. The current system is considered very desirable because, with 118 additional sales outlets located throughout the United States, Government documents are more accessible to the general public. Consigned Agent sales in fiscal year 1978 were $1.5 million.

STUDY COMMENTS SOLICITED

Mr. BENJAMIN. Before proceeding with the specific discussion of several recommendations made in the Coopers & Lybrand study, which I will give to you for the record, I would like to solicit your general comments concerning the report. Also, for the record, please explain your position with regard to each recommendation made. What steps, if any, have been taken to implement, or will be taken to implement, the recommendations?

Do you have a general observation you can share with us at this time, and then follow up on questions 23 through 28?

Mr. BOYLE. I can make an observation now. We have responded to all of the recommendations in the Coopers & Lybrand report to the Joint Committee on Printing. The study encompassed a very broad area and many complicated areas in the GPO. I think for the time involved to do the study, I would agree with the general observations of the contractor to the JCP, Coopers-Lybrand, that they did not see any need in the Government Printing Office for sweeping changes. In fact, in their Executive Summary they complimented us somewhat for the progress that has been made.

We agree with some of the recommendations that they need a further look and we are going to look at these areas. Many of the recommendations that were made were recommendations based on what we told them in their study that we were already doing. That was turned into a recommendation. Naturally we will continue to work on these projects.

Some of the recommendations we believe are regressive, and we have good reasons for not agreeing with them.

If you desire, I will give you my comments to the Joint Committee on Printing, step-by-step, which is a comment on every recommendation.

Mr. BENJAMIN. How voluminous is that?

Mr. BOYLE. It is a considerable number of pages. It is every recommendation, plus our response to the recommendation.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Why don't you give us for the record just a summary of that, and then as to the specific questions that I have submitted for the record, give us your observations plus your comments to the Joint Committee on that.

[Questions 24 through 28 follow:]